U.S. Must Not Abandon the Kurds by Madhav Das Nalapat – United Press International
In the battle against the Islamic State, among the most deadly have been the Kurdish formations.
Fighters from this ethnic group have played a considerable role in the shrinking of IS, both in Syria as well as in Iraq. In the latter, the only reasonably secure zone is the territory that Kurds effectively control, but which is under blockade by the Arab central government in Baghdad.
That Washington has given the green light to such an unjustified action on the part of the Haidar al Abadi government in Baghdad can only add force to the widespread view across the Mideast that the United States is a fair weather friend. who for even a fleeting advantage will turn even against those who have helped it enormously in the past.
Given the flood of Arab cash going to think tanks and universities across the United States, it is no surprise that several analysts (and the policymakers listening to them) constantly warn against assisting the Kurds to get their due.The latest in this sorry procession has been Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has publicly taken the side of Turkey's quasi-dictator Recip Tayyip Erdogan against the Kurds.
This when Erdogan has for six years been funding and otherwise assisting Wahabbi extremists, several of whom have by now sneaked into Europe and are busy forming sleeper cells in large cities across the continent. Erdogan, with his visceral ethnic bias against the Kurds, would like to once again drive them into a subordinate status through creating a Turkish-controlled zone along the border with Syria that would deprive the Kurdish population of even the basic right to use their own language…